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WASHINGTON (AP) — After a tumultuous and unproductive session of Congress, nearly 50 House members decided either to not seek reelection or to run for a higher office this year, leaving Democratic vacancies in several tight races that could tilt control of the House to either party.
Both Republicans and Democrats have had their fair share of turnover — with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, the most prominent — but Democrats are also losing prodigious fundraisers who have successfully held off GOP challengers in recent years. With fierce competition raging over just a couple dozen seats, that's left Democrats relying on fresh faces to hold their ground, while Republicans sense openings in four races in Virginia, Michigan and California.
The GOP is sending resources and trying to neutralize the issue of abortion access in those districts, hoping to go on offense to hold onto a slim majority. The party is running with candidates who have previously come up short in bids to unseat Democrats, but are now optimistic they can build on campaign experience and fare better when they don't face an incumbent.
Democrats, riding on a windfall of campaign donations and voters motivated by reproductive rights, are tapping candidates with track records in office. Most of them are state lawmakers who already have legislative accomplishments, relationships with voters and experience campaigning.
Regardless, it will be a tough task to make up the fundraising hauls and political skills of the prominent Democrats in the three states.
Democratic Reps. Katie Porter of California, Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, and Elissa Slotkin and Dan Kildee, both of Michigan, raked in a combined fundraising total of over $50 million in the last election cycle. Slotkin, Spanberger and Porter all entered Congress in 2018 as part of a wave of female lawmakers who flipped seats and delivered House control to Democrats.
They all have set their sights on higher offices: Slotkin is running for Michigan's Senate seat, Spanberger is running for Virginia governor next year, while Porter fell short in a bid for Senate earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Kildee decided not to run for a sixth term after a bout with cancer last year.
Here's how the races to replace them are playing out:
Central Michigan has been represented by either Kildee or his uncle, former Rep. Dale Kildee, for almost five decades. And Kildee said it's important to him that he hands his seat off to a Democrat.
“It's a lot easier to leave knowing we have a chance to hold the seat,” he said.
But Paul Junge, a Republican who lost to Kildee in 2022, said Kildee's retirement also made his decision to run again much easier.
“Incumbency is powerful for a reason. People know the name. They feel like they know that representative," said Junge, who is a former prosecutor and TV anchor. “This time I don’t face that. And in fact, for me, as a second-time candidate in this district, I was reaching out to people who already knew me.”
Junge also chalks up 2022 as a difficult year for Republicans in Michigan because voters were coming out to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution as well as reelect a popular Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. He has self-financed his campaign, pushing him towards a cash advantage this year.
So Junge has crisscrossed the district in his Ford F-150, working to win over the union members and blue-collar workers who once made Michigan a blue wall of support for Democrats, but who have slipped towards Republicans in recent years.
Still, Democrats are pointing out that Junge has spent most of his life outside the Michigan district, calling him a “carpetbagger." Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet, a state senator, is talking up her working-class roots and experience raising six children in the community.
Rivet described herself as a “moderate” and pointed to her time in the legislature championing tax credits for families with children.
“I believe that when we’re looking at policy, we have to prioritize middle-class families, working-class families,” she said.
Rivet is also pushing Junge on abortion, pointing in TV ads to his opposition to abortion rights. Junge has responded that he would not support a federal abortion ban.
In another central Michigan race, Democrats are also tapping a state lawmaker to try to hold what is now Slotkin's seat.
“In terms of abortion, I think it will always be an incredibly important issue because it’s a matter of personal freedom. That’s not going to change,” said Curtis Hertel Jr., who served four terms as a state senator before working in Whitmer’s administration.
He's facing a former statehouse colleague. Tom Barrett, who previously served in the state senate, is running for the seat again after losing to Slotkin by 5 points in 2022. Barrett was heavily outspent that year, but so far has been able to keep a closer pace to Hertel's fundraising this year.
Barrett argued that a host of problems — illegal immigration, a cost of living crisis, crime in Lansing, the district's largest city, as well as global threats — have only grown in the last two years.
“I feel like there’s unfinished business there,” he said.
Barrett hasn't backed away from his record of supporting abortion restrictions in the statehouse, saying he is “pro-life,” but he also described abortion access as a settled issue in Michigan.
The closely watched House races to replace Spanberger is playing out in northern Virginia between two Army veterans and lawyers: Democrat Eugene Vindman and Republican Derrick Anderson.
Vindman, promising to work to restore abortion rights that were in place under Roe v. Wade, has proven to be a prodigious fundraiser and is on track to surpass Spanberger's 2022 totals, giving him the advantage of early advertising. He and his twin brother, Alexander Vindman, played major roles in former President Donald Trump's first impeachment.
Anderson, whose campaign did not grant an interview, is emphasizing his background in the Army special forces and trying to present a gentler profile on abortion rights and economic issues. However, Anderson, who is engaged to be married, raised eyebrows for posing with a friend's wife and three daughters in a campaign photo shoot that could be mistaken for a family photo.
On the West Coast, Republicans are trying to go on the offensive against Dave Min, the Democratic state senator whom Porter recruited to fill her seat. The GOP's super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, launched an ad this week criticizing his support for criminal justice changes in California's State Assembly.
Republican Scott Baugh, a former chair of the Orange County GOP, ticked off a list of local violent crimes, saying Democrats were to blame for an “overall concern that we are less safe than we were four years ago.”
He was heavily outspent by Porter in 2022, but said this year the “spending won't be quite as lopsided.”
Min pointed out that he has the endorsement of the Los Angeles police union and has a history in the State Assembly of advocating for immigrants, who make up a large portion of the district.
He also has a fundraising advantage, but said he is still campaigning with the mentality that the election “could be decided by a few hundred votes and potentially could decide control of Congress.”